Some teachers question whether Department of Education's new assessment protocols are ready for prime time

Teachers say that state-imposed teacher assessment protocols designed to boost learning and weed out ineffective educators are neither fair nor accurate. They worry that problems with the Department of Education’s proposed evaluation system won’t be straightened out by September, when the new program is set to launch.

Those findings are drawn from two reports that evaluated 2011-12 pilot programs at 10 New Jersey school districts, including the Alexandria Township school district, which received $53,000 from the state to participate.

The new approach requires that districts rate their teachers as “highly effective,” “effective,” “partially effective” and “ineffective.” Teachers — even those with tenure — who receive “ineffective” ratings twice in two years could lose their jobs.

Supervisors are to base 50% of the ratings on student achievement — how well students do on standardized tests. Structured teacher observations are a major component of the other half of the rating, “teacher practice.”

The DOE reports detail problems with both elements, including a lack of consistency of observations within and across school districts, the lack of standardized tests at some grade levels and for some disciplines with which to assess student achievement, and disparities across pilot schools in observer training, the number of observations teachers received and the quality of those observations.

They also question how much the evaluations were influenced by what they call “the widget effect,” that long-time teachers tended to get top ratings.

According to the report by the DOE’s Evaluation Pilot Advisory Committee, none of the pilot districts had been able to conduct the number of full teacher observations the program requires. The report cited teachers who criticized the observations; teachers who had had conflicts with administrators — some of whom made teachers feel uncomfortable; and that at least one principal who didn’t “buy in” to the process waited months before scheduling evaluation conferences with the teachers observed.

Researchers at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education, who conducted the second study, reported that observation rates “varied substantially across districts,” and that fewer teachers than administrators felt that the training they received about the observation process was helpful.

Moreover, the researchers observed, “Districts did very little to prepare to use teacher observation data to make personnel decisions or to plan collective professional development — which was anticipated in the first year of the pilot.

That may have contributed to skepticism among the teachers.

“In order to gain credibility with educators and the public,” the Rutgers researchers wrote, the observation process needs to be more accurate and reliable.

DOE officials insist those “challenges” are being addressed and that the system will be ready for the 2013-14 school year.

In the past, said Matthew Jennings, superintendent of Alexandria Township Schools, “Educators weren’t held accountable for kids’ achievement as they are now.”

“It’s not about the evaluation system itself,” Jennings said. “It’s about how it fits in your system.” Teachers — and administrators — don’t like being held accountable, he said. “It provokes anxiety.”